I recommend the immediate launch of a new World Cup competition, the Hindsight Trophy. Given the vast number of England TV experts and fans who know afterwards what should have happened, the trophy should be ours permanently.
Jim Traynor
New Brighton, Merseyside
• The haywain in Constable’s famous painting is not standing in “Flatford mill pond” (The Hay Wain: Walking Constable’s Landscape review – a masterpiece for the climate crisis age, 10 July). The millpond is the water upstream of a mill which is held back and then released to drive the mill wheel. It is deep and still, hence “calm as a millpond”. The haywain is standing in the shallow mill pool, downstream from the mill.
David Wilkinson
Dorchester on Thames, Oxfordshire
• In his final interview, answering Guardian readers’ questions (13 July), Sam Neill – who was the same age as me – said “I’ve had to overcome the ordinariness of my appearance.” To my eyes, he had one of the handsomest, kindest faces of his generation of actors: quite the opposite of ordinary.
Susan Treagus
Manchester
• Sofie Jenkinson mentions Count Binface’s manifesto plan to restore the price of 99 Flakes to 99p (Count Binface represents the Silly Sausage Britain I know and love, 13 July). Any chance he could also restore the average price of a pint to £1.50, its cost in the mid-1990s, when a 99 Flake was 99p?
Michael Fuller
Ampthill, Bedfordshire
• I don’t know how high a labrador can get either (Letters, 14 July), but I am certain that there’s no way of differentiating the munchies from normal labrador behaviour.
Stephen Bassey
Porthtowan, Cornwall
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